Death at Bishop's Keep (11 page)

Kate lifted her skirt and looked down. At her feet stood a small terrier, plump as a piglet. It bared yellow teeth and growled.

“Nice doggie,” Kate said nervously. She had never gotten on with dogs.

The parrot gave a malicious squawk. “Step to it, men!”

“The dog bites,” snapped Aunt Jaggers. Her knitting needles clicked ferociously. “Don't provoke him.”

“I'll try not,” Kate said, moving to the red velvet settee. The terrier flopped on the hearth, chin on paws, and regarded Kate with red-eyed suspicion. She sat, feeling very much like Alice with the Red Queen, wondering when Aunt Jaggers would cry out, “Off with her head!”

Aunt Jaggers did not look up from her knitting. On the wall behind her hung a large multisectioned picture of the Plagues of Egypt. “I have asked you here to ensure that you understand the rules of the household. If you are staying, that is,” she added waspishly. “Perhaps you have reconsidered your rash decision to accept employment from my sister.”

Kate pressed her lips together. “I have not.”

“More's the pity,” Aunt Jaggers remarked, her eyes still fixed on her knitting. “You will find, when you inyolve yourself with that unspeakable Temple of Doris—”

“Horus, I believe it is called,” Kate said diplomatically.

Aunt Jaggers's shoulders went rigid with disapproval. “Its name is of no importance. As I have said to my sister very often, what matters is that its work is of the devil—séances, incense, astrology, cards, magic.” Her voice became shrill. “Should you become an apprentice to these sorcerers, Niece Kathryn, you will endanger your immortal soul. As does my sister.”

“Thank you, Aunt,” Kate murmured. “I appreciate your concern. I shall strive to guard my soul.”

“Don't be sarcastic, miss! It is unbecoming. You will not get on in the world that way.”

“No, Aunt,” Kate said humbly.

“To your post,” snapped the parrot. “Attention!” These military orders were followed by a silence, broken only by the furious clicking of needles and the terrier's asthmatic wheezing.

After a moment, Aunt Jaggers dropped her knitting into her lap. “My sister has expressed her belief that your Ardleigh kinship raises you above the level to which your occupation consigns you. I do not concur, but my opinions clearly have no weight. You should nevertheless be aware of the conditions of service in this household. God has given the young and malleable hearts of the servants into my trust,” she added with passionate intensity, “and it falls to me to see that they perform the duties for which He has fitted them.”

“Damnation,” the parrot remarked amiably. “Rule Britannia.”

Aunt Jaggers got up and threw a velvet drape over the parrot's cage. The bird subsided with a surly cluck. Sitting down, she said, “We observe the Sabbath strictly. No hot meals, no hot water, fires only in winter. Prayers each morning of the week at six-thirty in the back parlor. No jam, butter, tea, sugar, and most especially beer are permitted to the servants. In these practices, I am supported by
The Young Servant's Own
Book, which warns against excessive eating and drinking.” She reached for a well-worn book on the table beside her, opened it to a marked page, and began to read. “ ‘Eating too much is bad for the health, and drinking too much leads to misery. It is not wise for servants to accustom themselves to drink strong tea with a great deal of sugar; for, should they have to buy for themselves, they will find it very expensive to do so.' ” She shut the book and turned to Kate, her eyes feverish with passionate intensity. “You see, by guarding those in our employ against their own wicked desires, we do them a service for which they will be grateful in later years.” She dipped her hand into a box of candy on the table beside her and put a chocolate into her mouth.

“I see,” Kate said thoughtfully. Was Aunt Jaggers's severe guardianship the reason for Amelia's fear and Mudd's warning? Somehow, she thought not. Her own earlier employer had been almost as strict, without any noticeable effect on the servants. No, if the servants' fear and bitterness were directed at Aunt Jaggers, it flowed from some other source, darker and deeper than mere resentment.

The terrier had fallen noisily asleep, and Aunt Jaggers's voice became hoarsely sententious against the background of its snore. “It is our duty to reprove and correct those in our employ and to guard them from their own natural inclinations to become apprentices of misrule. That, of course,” she added, but not as an afterthought, “is why the reading of novels is prohibited.”

In other circumstances, Kate might have laughed. Now, seeing Aunt Jaggers's face, her upper lip beaded with sweat, she knew this was nothing to laugh about. “You do not deem novels fit reading,” she ventured cautiously.

“A sign of moral depravity,” Aunt Jaggers replied firmly. “Witness this teaching from
The Christian Miscellany and Family Visitor.”
She took a booklet from the table, adjusted her glasses, and again read aloud. “ ‘Novel reading tends to inflame the passions, pollute the imagination, and corrupt the heart. It frequently becomes an inveterate habit, strong and fatal as that of a drunkard. In this state of intoxication, great waywardness of conduct is always sure to follow. Even when the habit is renounced, and genuine reformation takes place, the individual always suffers the cravings of former excitement.' ”

“A horrible fate,” Kate murmured, thinking of Beryl Bardwell's embryonic story in the writing desk in her room upstairs, through which she fully intended to intoxicate the imaginations and inflame the passions of her readers. She would have to be more careful to conceal the evidence of her moral depravity.

Aunt Jaggers lowered the booklet and fixed glittering eyes upon Kate. “I trust that you will agree to do as I desire out of courtesy, if not out of strict requirement.”

“I thank you,” Kate said, “for communicating your concerns to me.” She took a deep breath. A lie would finish this unpleasant business in an instant. Was it honesty or sheer stubbornness that made her so contrary? “But I cannot agree to keep a rule made by another,” she said, “when I would not make the same rule for myself.”

Aunt Jaggers took off her glasses and stared at Kate. “Impertinence!”

Kate bowed her head. “I do not intend it so, Aunt. But I do plead guilty to candor.”

Aunt Jaggers's thin lips pursed into a knot. “You will reap the wages of your transgression!”

Kate stood. “I daresay, Aunt,” she said, and walked to the door. As she closed it behind her, she heard the parrot squawk again. “God save the Queen.”

And as she turned to go down the gloomy hall, she glimpsed the flying ties of Amelia's lacy white apron fluttering like startled doves around the corner.

“When constabulary duty's to be done, A policeman's lot is not a happy one.”

—GILBERT AND SULLIVAN The Pirates of Penzance

 

 

 

 

I
nspector Howard Wainwright sat at a small table in his dingy office in the even dingier basement of Town Hall, frowning down at the hastily scribbled autopsy report Sergeant Battle had laid before him. His frown deepened to a scowl, and he wished fervently that the borough police could afford one of those new typewriters. It would make Dr. Forsythe's crabbed hand legible.

But his superiors were not likely to authorize the purchase of a typewriter, the inspector knew. And even if they did, his sausage-fingered sergeant would have to learn to operate it. One eventuality was as improbable as the other, and either was as unlikely as the installation of a telephone, which the inspector also fervently desired.

Inspector Wainwright was a practical man and knew the limitations of his position. But he was also ambitious and wished for the tools that would not only help him do his work but assist him to rise in his profession. His experience with the Essex constabulary, however, had made him pessimistic about the future. His pessimism pervaded his view of his work, indeed, of his life, and deepened his naturally melancholy state of mind.

The inspector was still squinting at Dr. Forsythe's indecipherable scribble when a figure darkened the doorway. He looked up impatiently. “Yes, Sergeant?”

Sergeant Battle came in and closed the door behind him. “ 'Tis th' gennulman from th' dig, sir,” he said,
sotto voce.
“Th' one wot I tol' yer 'bout. He's got th' pichures.”

“Has he?” Inspector Wainwright put down the report. He looked at Sergeant Battle's fat, oily fingers. Not only improbable and unlikely, but impossible. “Well, show him in.”

The gentleman who came into the room was carrying a large leather portfolio. Inspector Wainwright stood.

“I fear I neglected to introduce myself to your subordinates yesterday,” the gentleman said, taking off his dusty felt hat. “My name is Charles Sheridan.” The sergeant retired discreetly and shut the door.

The inspector was at a disadvantage, and he knew it. He had been absent from the murder scene yesterday because he had been summoned to look for some missing plate at Hammond Hall—plate that had turned up in the kitchen slops while he was questioning Lady Hammond's cook. If he had been at the dig instead of pursuing his futile errand, he would have forbidden the gentleman to take photographs. It was not that he had anything against cameras; quite the contrary. He was firm in his opinion, however, that the documentation of crime should be done by the police—and the borough force, which possessed neither typewriter nor telephone, possessed no camera.

“I was about to have a cup of tea,” the inspector said. “Would you take some?”

“Thank you, yes,” Mr. Sheridan replied, unstrapping his portfolio.

The inspector went to the corner, where a kettle was boiling on a gas burner, and took down two crockery cups, neither very clean. By the time he returned with the tea, Mr. Sheridan had laid out a dozen photos on the table.

The inspector set down the cups and leaned over the photographs. “Ah,” he said to himself after a moment, and then “Oh,” and finally, “Yes, I see.” When he finished his examination, he took up his cup and sat down, feeling even more gloomy than before. He had viewed the corpse in question, laid out on the mortuary table while Dr. Forsythe stood at the ready. He had viewed the excavation this morning and had seen what there was to see, which wasn't very much. But Mr. Sheridan's photographs of the body
in
the excavation gave him a far more complete understanding of the situation than either his belated inspection or the report of Sergeant Battle and PC Trabb. The fact quite depressed him.

Mr. Sheridan sipped his tea. “You've had experience with photography in criminal investigation, Inspector?”

Inspector Wainwright examined the questioner over the rim of his cup. A man of obvious breeding and intelligence, the sort of man whose social position the inspector could not help but envy. “Can't say as I have,” he said sourly. “A local photographer shoots everybody who is arrested. Criminals don't fancy the business, of course. They contort their faces and bodies so that even their mothers wouldn't recognize 'em.”

“And what do you do with the photographs, once obtained?”

Inspector Wainwright laughed shortly. “What else?” He gestured toward a cabinet. “We keep ‘em. Of course, it's no mean trick to find one that's wanted again. Not many men give a truthful account of their names.” He looked at the photograph of the dead man, stretched out on his back, his aquiline features clearly visible, as was his clothing, the ring on his finger, the knife wound in his chest. “But this, now,” he said thoughtfully, almost to himself. “This is dif'rent. If I had a camera, and more coppers, a picture like this could be taken round to innkeepers, the stationmaster, cabbies. P'rhaps somebody could identify the bloke.” He put down the photo. “If I had a camera,” he repeated morosely. “And more coppers.”

“You don't know who he was, then?”

Inspector Wainwright shook his head. “PC Trabb's out inquirin', but there's nothin' yet. Got the autopsy report, though,” he added, “for what it's worth.” He scowled at the nearly illegible document.

“Anything unexpected?”

“Only that the tip of the knife was recovered. Broke off against a rib.” The inspector picked up the envelope that had come with Dr. Forsythe's report and spilled the contents onto the table. Among the items was a triangular bit of metal about a quarter inch on a side.

“Ah,” Mr. Sheridan said, picking it up. “Sharpened on two edges. A dagger. A weapon designed for killing.” He looked at the other items that had spilled out of the envelope with the knife tip: a railway ticket, a cutoff clothing label, and the gold scarab ring. “The ticket was found in the victim's pocket?”

The inspector nodded.

“Return ticket, London to Dover,” Mr. Sheridan mused. “He came from the Continent—from France, if we trust the evidence of the Parisian label—on a brief errand, planning to return shortly. But something waylaid him. Or rather, someone.” He picked up the ring and examined it. “You have noticed the inscription inside this ring, no doubt.”

“Inscription?” The inspector frowned. “I noticed somethin' that looked like child's scribblin'.”

“Permit me to copy it,” Mr. Sheridan said. From a pocket he took out a jeweler's loupe and inserted it into his eye, holding it firmly between his brow and his cheek. From another pocket he took out a pencil and pad, and commenced to sketch a series of stick figures—hands, birds, snakes, and other, unidentifiable objects.

The inspector took in Mr. Sheridan's industry without a word. The man was adept, no doubt about it. The last fellow he had seen working in such a nimble-fingered way had turned out to be a forger. Warily, he asked, “And what do you propose to do with this copy?”